


Something Better

by Loftec



Series: Book & Movie AUs [5]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Christmas, Future Fic, M/M, Reunions, Season 3, Sleepless in Seattle AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:17:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9945848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loftec/pseuds/Loftec
Summary: Listen, I'm not saying that this is a Sleepless in Seattle AU, but it's kind of a Sleepless in Seattle AU.It's also a season 3 fix it, future fic kinda thing, splitting from canon after 3x12. See the notes in the beginning for TW, but if you've seen season 3 you already know what it's about. I'm not adding any new pain, promise.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Rated M for mentions of canonical neglect, abuse, rape, and whatever work Ian might have done at the back of the clubs in season 4.
> 
> Mentions of unmedicated mania and depression.

.

 

 

Ian is six and a half hours into his seven hour journey when he realizes he’s gone through all the CDs he brought, so close to the finish line yet so far away. What he really should have is a car with a stereo that’s got a USB input for his phone, but seeing as he got to borrow his neighbor’s car and drive it across three states for nothing but gas money, he’s not about to start complaining.

Even though radio at Christmas is fucking insufferable.

”Nope,” he mutters, one hand on the wheel as he blindly reaches out to press in one of the chunky buttons on the stereo, and ’Last Christmas’ gives out to a second of static, before tuning in on a woman’s calm voice.

_”-otions, broadcasting live across America from the top of the Willis Tower in Chicago. Today we’re talking about hopes and dreams and we want to hear from yo-”_

”Nope,” Ian snorts and hits the next button, only to shudder at the sound of some pontificating conservative asshole complaining about something, whatever it is immediately drowning in the next channel’s hysterically merry commercial.

_”-THERE’S STILL TIME TO GET YOUR LOVED ONE-”_

”No thank you,” Ian shakes his head and reaches over to press the next button, frowning when it goes back to a station he’s already tried.

 _”-next caller is local to Chicago,”_ the annoyingly calm voice announces, but it’s still so much better than any of the other bullshit that Ian leaves it on for a second while he turns his focus to the SUV overtaking him. It’s been dark out for the last couple of hours and the snow has only barely been cleared from the roads.

_”Go ahead, caller, what’s your name?”_

Another voice joins in, light and small and a little disrupted by the quality of the phone line. _”It’s Yevgeny-”_

The last name drowns in a persistent bleep.

 _”No last names, Yevgeny,”_ the presenter admonishes and probably thinks she sounds jovial as she does so, but Ian finds her tone pretty condescending, _”what an interesting name.”_

 _”It’s just my name,”_ the kid says, clearly not charmed. Ian snorts and flashes a quick grin as he checks the rear view mirror. The traffic is surprisingly light this close to Chicago, it’s almost peaceful.

 _”You sound a little younger than our usual audience, Yevgeny,”_ the presenter tries, _”how old are you?”_

 _”Five,”_ Yevgeny answers, still not sounding entirely convinced of her motives. Ian feels his eyebrows climb up his forehead in surprise.

 _”Five?”_ the presenter echoes his thoughts.

 _”Five and nine months,”_ the kid clarifies, _”how old are you?”_

The presenter makes a soft noise, like she doesn’t know what to say, and Ian probably looks like a lunatic he’s grinning so wide. He thinks the kid sounds a lot like Carl did at that age.

”Shit,” he mutters and absently pulls a hand through his hair, pushing aside the fleeting thought of his brother. 

_”Alright, Yevgeny,”_ the presenter collects herself, _”I’m Doctor Lydia, do you want to tell us your Christmas wish?”_

Ian rolls his eyes and would be changing stations again, if he hadn’t been just a little curious to find out why this kid has called a radio program at seven PM, the day before Christmas.

 _”It’s not for me, it’s for my dad,”_ Yevgeny tells her, with the solemn selflessness of a kid who’s probably already seen his presents, wrapped up and hidden somewhere in a closet, _”I think he needs a new wife.”_

 _”A new wife?”_ Doctor Lydia asks, clearly surprised. _”What’s wrong with his old wife?”_

 _”He hasn’t got one,”_ Yevgeny states, sounding like he’s just waiting for the good doctor to catch up.

 _”Oh, Yevgeny, I’m sorry,”_ Doctor Lydia, on the other hand, sounds like she just got interested, _”tell me, where is your mother?”_

”Jesus,” Ian mutters to himself, brow creasing in a concerned frown.

 _”Um,”_ Yevgeny hesitates, _”she’s not here.”_

Ian’s first thought is that the mother is out doing something, or that the kid’s parents are going through a tough divorce, maybe. Doctor Lydia immediately jumps to more tragic conclusions.

 _”Losing a loved one is very difficult,”_ she sympathizes, _”I’m sure your father is doing his best… is he there?”_

”Oh, no, Yevgeny,” Ian sits back a little and narrows his eyes at the reflexive roadsigns, turning off at his exit just as it starts to gently snow again, ”hang up, kid, she wants to rat you out!”

 _”He’s working,”_ Yevgeny supplies, sounding rightfully suspicious.

_”Are you alone?”_

”Oh, here we go,” Ian rolls his eyes. It’s not that he thinks it’s okay when parents leave their kids alone, but he can’t stand the condescending tone of some people when they think they know exactly how things are supposed to be done, shocked by stupidly simple things like parents working two jobs and not being able to afford to hire in help to look after their kids.

 _”Just me and my aunt,”_ Yevgeny tells her and Doctor Lydia hums appreciatively. Ian imagines one of the producers breathing out a sigh of relief, one finger still hovering over the last digit and ready to dial the CPS.

 _”Okay, Yevgeny, tell me,”_ the radio therapist moves on, her voice settling in to a calm, steady rhythm, _”why do you think your dad needs a new wife?”_

”You’re seriously gonna shrink the kid right now?” Ian huffs, glancing out at the houses lining the street, becoming more and more familiar around him as he navigates through his old hometown.

 _”He’s not very tidy,”_ Yevgeny reveals after thinking it over for a second.

 _”No?”_ Doctor Lydia laughs. _”You know, cleaning up after her husband isn’t what a wife is for, right?”_

 _”Mom used to clean the house,”_ Yevgeny argues, matter-of-factly.

 _”Yes well,”_ Lydia concedes, voice sickly sweet, _”some mommies do, Yevgeny, but-”_

 _”He’s lonely,”_ Yevgeny interrupts her lecture impatiently, _”he’s got no one to play with. If Ben went away and I didn’t have anyone to play with at daycare, I’d be really lonely and sad and it wouldn’t be fair.”_

 _”Tell me about your dad,”_ Doctor Lydia prompts. Ian stops at a red light and frowns out at the empty intersection, fingers drumming gently over the top of the steering wheel.

 _”He’s the best,”_ Yevgeny asserts, almost like he’s daring anyone to disagree, _”his heart is just a little, um… bruised. That’s what my auntie says anyways.”_

Ian lets out a low sigh, and wiping a hand over his eyes he’s surprised to find that they’re a little wet. He quickly rubs it away and puts his hand back down, shifting the car into first as the light switches to green.

 _”And what does your father say?”_ Doctor Lydia asks. _”Do you talk to him about this?”_

 _”About what?”_ Yevgeny sounds so earnestly confused that Ian can’t help huffing out a laugh, making a right turn on to a slightly busier street.

 _”About this sadness you sense in him?”_ Doctor Lydia still tries to tread delicately.

” _Um, no?”_ Yevgeny hesitates, but then continues with more confidence when he seems to think of something. _”One time I was supposed to be sleeping but I wasn’t and I heard him talking to auntie and he said-, he said that it’s not gonna happen twice.”_

”Oh,” Ian sighs, feeling his eyes sting again.

 _”What isn’t going to happen twice, Yevgeny?”_ Doctor Lydia asks, calmly, clearly milking this whole situation for all it’s worth.

 _”F-,”_ Ian laughs out loud when the unexpected f-bomb is bleeped by the profanity delay and Yevgeny’s voice drops to a quick whisper, _”sorry doctor lady I gotta go, auntie doesn’t like you she thinks you’re a Charlotte.”_

There’s a click of Yevgeny hanging up, and then the low tone of a disconnected call for a second before the producers cut it off entirely.

 _”Well, there you have it,”_ Doctor Lydia wraps up, sounding a little puzzled but determined to stay annoyingly professional, _”tonight’s first call has been from five-year-old-”_

”Five and nine months,” Ian mutters and smirks to himself.

 _”Yevgeny in Chicago,”_ the presenter continues, _”whose Christmas wish this year is for his father to find a new wife and-, it would seem like you have a lot of opinions on this and here’s one, hello caller, you are on the air.”_

 _”Oh, hello Doctor Lydia, I’m Marsha in Baltimore,”_ a woman’s voice comes in, _”and I just have to say I love your show, I listen to it all the time.”_

 _”Thank you, Marsha,”_ Doctor Lydia preens, _”do you have any advice for our young caller in Chicago?”_

Ian creeps the car to a halt and parks outside of his old house, cutting the engine but leaving the power on.

 _”What an adorable child, I just had to phone in, Doctor Lydia,”_ Marsha fawns, _”it’s exactly like that movie, Sleepless in Seattle! How romantic! I have two kids and a good-for-nothing husband myself but if this guy is anything like a young Tom Hanks, I might just consider packing up the kids and moving out of state!”_

”Jesus,” Ian mumbles and rolls his eyes as Doctor Lydia chuckles politely at her caller.

 _”Thank you, Marsha,”_ she says again, _”movies are escapist and wonderful, but I would advice against trusting in them too much when making big decisions in your own life. For the next two and a half hours, I will be here to take your calls and talk about your hopes and dreams for the next year. We’ll be right back after these messages.”_

Ian turns off the power and gets out of the car, not closing the door as he stands for a few seconds and just looks up at his old house, deceptively calm on the outside. The lights are on on both floors and he knows that they’re expecting him, but he almost feels frozen to the ground, cold running through him as snow gently falls over North Wallace. He blinks and shakes himself out of it, he’s been driving all day, all the way from Nashville. It’s not like he can turn back now.

Pulling out his suitcase and parka from the back seat, he doesn’t bother putting the coat on before he locks the car and quickly steps up to the house, through the gate and up the steps, hesitating for a second outside the door. Should he knock? He probably should knock. 

He doesn’t knock. Turning the knob and pushing the door open, Ian takes a quick breath and walks inside. He’s not sure what he expected, but it’s warm and calm inside as he steps through the vestibule and into the living room, sweeping his eyes over the old furniture, the new fixtures, the old pictures in new frames on shelves and on the walls. Home looks and smells almost eerily the same as he remembers, but somehow still feels entirely different. He sets down his bag on the floor and drops the parka on top, before moving through the living room, listening for sounds of there being anyone home.

”Debs?” Fiona’s clear voice calls out from the kitchen, stopping Ian dead in his track. ”Is that you, sweetie?”

Ian should probably say something, but it’s like there’s a physical block keeping him from answering. He waits until the silence causes Fiona to investigate, her wide smile slipping as she steps into view and sees Ian standing there.

”Hey,” Ian tries it out, his voice barely pushing past the ball of nerves in his throat, ”Fiona-”

He doesn’t have to say anything else before she suddenly moves through the room and towards him, crashing into him and wrapping her arms around his neck, tightly, her strong hands gripping on to the back of his head. Ian squeezes his eyes shut over the wave of relief and emotion breaking through him as he holds his sister close, and silently berates himself for putting this off for so long. For being so afraid of how they’d react if he ever managed to come home.

Fiona is smiling again, wide and genuine and only slightly dampened by the tears shining in her dark eyes, as she pulls back a little and holds Ian’s face between her hands.

”Look at you!” she exclaims. ”You’re so handsome!”

Ian huffs self-consciously and bends his head for a second, before peering up at Fiona’s amused grin.

”You look great, Fi,” he says, his voice heavy and tough with emotion, ”I’m- I’m sorry I-”

He needs to apologize. He’s been gone for six years and yeah, he’s been in contact with his siblings for a couple of months now, but he hasn’t apologized for how he left. It’s been on his mind for years, he’s built it up as this thing, this thing that might take away some of the heaviness he’s carried with him since he left. If he only gets to say he’s sorry, maybe regret won’t be the first and last thing he feels each day, every day.

He hasn’t rehearsed this beyond ’I’m sorry’, if nothing else comes of this trip at least he will have apologized, that’s what he kept thinking. But Fiona doesn’t look like she expects him to apologize, like she needs to understand why in order to be happy he’s returned. The words stick, anything he’s ever imagined he might want to say in this moment wiped from his memory, as his lips work around his stifled apology and he can’t help but mirror her happy smile.

”What’s all this noise?” a deep, only slightly familiar voice asks from the stairs. Ian drops his hands from Fiona’s back and turns around to see a stretched and filled out version of his little brother stepping off the stairs, rubbing at his eyes before he blinks over at them. ”Hey Ian.”

”Hey Carl,” Ian manages, suddenly unsure of what to do. It’s decided for him when the door bursts open and people bustle into the vestibule in a flurry of bags and coats.

”Look who I found!” Lip announces triumphantly. ”Fi? You’ve got the whole horde comin’ in at once.”

Debbie emerges from the vestibule first, carrying a small child and scowling at nothing in particular when she spots Ian and almost drops the kid.

”Ian!” she yells and carefully lowers the child to stand on the floor so she can rush forward and collide with Ian. She looks so grown up, but she’s still small enough to flatten the side of her face against his chest and wrap her arms tightly around his waist.

”Hey Debs,” he chuckles and holds on to her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He smiles into her long, wispy hair, still the same deep copper as his own, and then looks up at the semi-circle of family standing around and watching them. Liam seems only vaguely aware of what’s going on, Ian isn’t sure if he even remembers him, as the youngest he was only three when Ian left. Lip stands behind him, hands on Liam’s shoulders and a small, unsure smirk on his lips when Ian looks at him.

”Lip,” Ian starts, spreading out his arms in a kind of shrug when Debbie sniffs and steps aside. He opens his mouth to nothing, again, and shakes his head when Lip’s vague expression changes into something more genuine.

”Asshole,” Lip sighs but then shakes his head too, before biting out a quick ’fuck’ and stepping around Liam to be the one crossing the space between them, holding out his arms and grabbing on to Ian in a big hug.

”Shit Lip,” Ian mutters against his shoulder, ”you look old.”

”Fuck you!” Lip laughs and steps back so he can hit Ian in the shoulder. ”And seriously dude, fuck you!”

”I know,” Ian nods and absently rubs at his shoulder, unable to stop smiling when Lip grins at him. It’s a gallery of happy smiles when Ian glances around at his family, but then his gaze sticks to Carl for a couple of seconds, his little brother still standing by the stairs with that same slight frown he had when he first stepped down. He’s got a new kind of build to him, a new stance; back straight and shoulders relaxed. It kinda hurts to look at him.

Ian nods to himself and then turns back to the youngest members of the family, pulling in a shaky breath and giving Liam an uncertain smile.

”Hey, Liam,” he says, ”you remember me at all?”

It takes a couple of awful seconds, but then Liam’s face splits into a crooked smile and he gives Ian a small nod.

”Yeah,” he says, ”kinda.”

”Missed you,” Ian grins and reaches out to ruffle through his brother’s curly hair, the kid dodging it and slapping away his hand in a way he definitely didn’t know how to do when Ian saw him last.

”Don’t touch the fro,” he warns, but he’s still smiling so Ian just takes his hand back and huffs out a laugh, ”missed you too, Ian.”

”Aw geez, this is gettin’ too much!” Fiona suddenly announces, cutting through some of the tension and turning everyone’s focus to her. ”Haven’t been this emotional since Carl’s graduation.”

Ian relaxes a little when his siblings chuckle and the whole room seems to settle.

”Who are you?” the little girl Debbie had carried inside demands, glaring up at him and looking obviously displeased to not understand what’s going on, or what’s suddenly so funny.

”I’m Ian,” he says and crouches down in front of her, ”you must be Franny, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m-, I’m your uncle.”

Franny’s disapproving scowl only deepens.

”Already have too many of those,” she decides and looks up at Lip when he laughs.

”Sorry, man,” he says and bends over to pick up the little girl, settling her against his side and smirking at Ian as they both straighten up again.

”Hey,” Ian shrugs, ”she’s not wrong.”

”Everybody in the kitchen!” Fiona decides, clapping her hands together once as she starts backing up. ”I wanna hear everything, so even if you’re not helpin’ out with dinner you still gotta come sit and talk to Ian, okay?”

”Let’s go,” Lip tells Franny and bounces her lightly on his hip as they all start moving around Ian and filing towards the kitchen. 

”Ian,” Carl mutters from the stairs as Ian turns to follows the rest, causing him to stop and spin around again, curiously looking over at his brother who’s still staring at him with that concerned frown, ”I got in to military school.”

Ian feels his lips pull into a crooked smile. ”I know.”

”Graduated this year,” Carl continues, jutting his chin out a little and squaring his shoulders, ”top twenty percent of my class.”

Ian nods. It’d been his own dream, once; join the military, be an officer, make something of himself, make a difference. It’d gone to shit along with everything else, but that doesn’t mean he’s not happy for Carl or proud of his accomplishments. Carl’d had no direction except for straight to juvie when Ian left, and now he’s one semester into college and one step closer to the Chicago Police Academy. It’s almost poetic, or something, one brother burning out and the other pulling himself up by the skin of his teeth. Only it isn’t, poetic, it’s just what happened. It’s not Carl’s fault that Ian got sick, it isn’t Ian’s fault either. It just is. Ian would hate for Carl to feel guilty about succeeding at something, just because it’d been Ian’s dream first.

They’d always had a kind of easy bond, and Ian feels like he ruined that by taking off, more than he ruined his relationships with any of his other siblings. He knew Carl looked up to him, trusted him and relied on him in a way no one else did, and he took that away.

”Carl-,” he starts, the desire to explain and apologize rushing back in. 

”Did it for you,” Carl says, like it’s simple, and he allows it when Ian steps up to him and pulls him into a tight hug, wrapping his arms around him and patting him on the back as he squeezes him closer. He can feel Carl grinning into his shoulder, right before his arms grab on tighter around his torso, hands locked behind his back, and he manages to pick up Ian’s whole body off the ground by a couple of inches.

”Oof,” Ian huffs and grins, remembering all the times they’d done this before, only reversed. 

”I’m stronger than you now,” Carl announces right before letting Ian back down on the ground with a low laugh, clearly pleased with himself.

”Still taller than you, though,” Ian grins and is about to step back when the affectionate gesture and the rush of memories compel him to go back in and clutch on tighter to his brother’s shoulders, and turn the embrace from playful to heartfelt in one stumbling moment.

”Sorry,” he mumbles and feels Carl tense up for a second before he tentatively melts into the hug, ”proud of you.”

Carl nods silently against his shoulder and Ian blinks away the tears welling up again. He takes a step back when he hears someone sniffle behind him, sparing their audience a quick glance before he takes Carl’s face in his hands and leans in to press a wet kiss to his forehead. Carl just bends his head and nods, and none too discreetly wipes at his eyes and nose with the heel of his hand, shrugging when Ian tries to ruffle his buzz-cut.

”You’re still gay as fuck, I see,” Carl mutters and grins when Ian follows his teasing cue and steps back enough to hit him lightly up the back of his head.

”Still a little shit, _I see_ ,” Ian counters with a wide grin, and pushing Carl into motion ushers the whole gang towards the kitchen.

”How was the ride?” Fiona asks, dabbing under her eyes with a balled up paper towel, smiling at Ian when he takes a seat at the kitchen table with Liam and Lip, who apparently seems to figure that having Franny sit on his lap excuses him from helping out. Fiona and Carl seem to naturally gravitate in behind the counter and Debbie hovers around the kitchen, tidying up the table so she can start setting it for dinner.

”Almost exactly seven hours,” Ian reports, ”it was alright, not too much traffic. Thought the snow would slow me down, but it was alright.”

”That your beat up Ford outside?” Lip asks, raising his eyebrows.

”Not mine,” Ian says and leans forward, elbows on the table and his hands clasped together, ”neighbor’s out of state over Christmas, let me borrow it.”

”You live in a house?” Fiona asks, a little absently. Ian’s pretty sure they already covered this when they first started talking on the phone again, but he doesn’t mind repeating himself.

”Apartment,” he corrects her, ”not exactly central, but it’s nice. Small, simple… cheap.”

”Clayton don’t mind you bailing on him over Christmas?” Lip asks, something a little pointed underlining his question.

”Nah,” Ian says, trying not to read too much into anything being said so early on, picking up a hand to lightly scratch at the back of his neck, ”he’s got a new girlfriend anyway, he’s kinda preoccupied with her. It was his idea, actually… I mean, been wanting to call you guys for years, but-, don’t know… yeah. Wasn’t sure how you’d like it.”

Fiona makes a disapproving noise and throws Ian a playful glare. She and Carl seem to have a certain rhythm going in the kitchen, working around each other and together without more direction than a few stray words here and there.

”Yeah,” Ian huffs and feels his lips bend up in a lopsided smile, ”yeah, that’s what he said.”

”Well,” Fiona sees his smile and raises him with something like a hundred watt, ”you’re here now.”

”Why did you leave?” Carl asks, looking up from the onion he’s chopping, his knife stilling as he realizes that all eyes in the room are on him. ”What? I can’t ask?”

Ian bows his head, he expected this to come up. They’ve been dancing around this conversation for months and while Fiona and Lip have an easy time skirting subjects they know are gonna be difficult to broach, Carl has always been of a more direct nature. But four years in therapy and Ian still doesn’t know how to talk about what happened. It’s private, he feels like it’s the most private thing he’s got. He might have mentioned some of it to Lip once, and yeah, his therapist dug it out of him after a couple of years, insisting that they needed to take a more holistic approach to his mental wellbeing. But they hadn’t really _talked_ about it, maybe he should have tried harder. He probably should have tried harder.

But there’s only one person he can see himself talking to about what happened, and Ian doubts _he_ ever wants to see his face again, forget about having any kind of conversation. He _really_ should have tried harder.

”’Cause of Mickey, right?” Lip suddenly says, giving Ian a tightlipped smile when he stares at him. He probably means for it to be encouraging, but Ian thinks it looks more like a challenge.

”What did Mickey do?” Fiona asks, pouring water from the tap into a big pot and glancing at the ceiling like she tries to remember something. ”Was he after you? Ian, did he threaten you?”

”No,” Ian huffs and shakes his head, looking away from Lip and then closing his eyes for a second when he feels his walls just waiting to shoot up and shut him down. ”No… no, he didn’t threaten me. He um-, he got married.”

”So?” Fiona says and turns off the tap, frowning over at Ian who glances at Lip.

”You’re on your own,” he says and lets go of Franny long enough to hold up his hands, and Ian is a little surprised to realize that Lip never, in the whole six years since Ian’s been gone, told anyone about him and Mickey. Suddenly he’s gripped by an overwhelming urge to have them know, the absurdity of his own family not understanding something that’s been so important to him hitting him like a freight train.

”Well,” he sighs and fumbles for the right way to describe his relationship with Mickey, a way to tell them about what happened without really telling them. They fucked for two years, that part is easy enough. Ian fell in love and Mickey didn’t, that part is less certain but covers the basics. Mickey marrying a Russian whore when she got knocked up after raping him while Ian was forced to watch, Mickey’s own father aiming the gun at them and footing the bill, that part is not only impossible to disclose, but also none of their business.

”We were, um,” he tries again, looking up to realize that his whole present family has come to a complete halt, just waiting for him to open up about something they probably have wondered about since he left, ”we were together. We uh-, I was in love with him.”

Fiona’s eyebrows climb up her forehead and her mouth falls slack as she tries to process this information. Carl looks completely unfazed as he resumes cooking, the steady sound of the big knife over the chopping board the only thing that can be heard for a few long seconds.

”With Mickey _Milkovich_?” Fiona finally snaps out of her shock enough to ask, immediately looking a little ashamed of this reaction when Ian frowns at her. ”And Mickey getting married to someone else was enough for you to leave your whole family behind, just like that?”

Ian sighs and sits back in his chair. She sounds more apprehensive than angry, but there’s no mistaking the hurt underlying her questions.

”A lotta shit happened that year,” he tries to explain, ”it’s not something I wanna talk about, but yeah… it broke me, Fi, couldn’t stand being around and watch him go through with it. I was weak-, I know that now… I abandoned him when he was goin’ through some really bad shit.”

”Ian,” Lip sounds like he’s about to argue, because his solutions to Ian’s relationship problems have always been in the lines of ’cut and run’, or ’dump and replace’. 

”No,” Ian firmly stops his brother from saying anything else, ”need you to listen to me and trust me on this, okay? Mickey’s the only guy I’ve ever really loved, and the things we went through together… it’s between him and me, alright? I _am_ sorry I left the way I did, but it had nothing to do with you. You guys didn’t need me and anyway, Lip was the one pushing for me to go talk to Clayton in the first place.”

He pulls in a sharp breath, he’s pretty certain he never meant to say any of that shit. Even though it’s true. It’s not like he’s bitter about it, but it’s still a fact that his siblings never really tried to find him after he ran away, not when he tried to enlist, not when he worked the clubs in Boystown and survived on party favors, not when his first real psychosis got him hospitalized and brought him in contact with his biological father, not when he was diagnosed, not when Clayton got divorced and relocated to Nashville, asking Ian to come with him. There had been no one chasing after Ian Gallagher when he ran away, and while that had been pretty helpful when all he wanted was to _run away_ , it’d been one of the more painful realizations he’d been forced to face once things settled and he stopped resisting the therapy part of his maintenance therapy.

Lip seems kind of reluctantly guilty and maybe a little regretful when Ian glances his way, but Fiona looks ready to fight; jaw tense and eyes wide.

”Who’s Mickey?” Liam asks and Ian breathes out a sigh of relief when the focus of the room shifts away from him, and diverts whatever argument Fiona might want to start on the subject of familial loyalty.

”You know him, bud,” Lip says, voice light, ”he lives just around the block, remember? The house almost under the tracks.”

”Oh yeah,” Liam nods and smiles a little, happy to be caught up with at least part of the conversation. Ian feels a familiar sense of panic creeping in as he stares at the side of Lip’s face until his brother eventually notices and gives him an odd look.

”What?” he asks and shakes his head when Ian doesn’t answer, seemingly unaware of what he just said and what it means. 

_He still lives at the old house_ , fuck fuck fuck, Mickey’s so close the man could stand on his porch and shout and Ian would hear him. Ian left Chicago so he could stop thinking about him, it didn’t work. He came back so he could stop thinking about him, _it’s not working_. 

Ian swallows and frowns, still staring at Lip who’s gone back to declare thumb war against his niece.

”Is he-,” Ian starts and stops when his phone suddenly starts ringing in the other room, the vibrations strong enough and the ringtone loud enough to transfer all the way to the kitchen.

”Gotcha!” Lip cheers as he’s pressing down on Franny’s thumb and she lets out an indignant squeal.

”I should-,” Ian mutters and gets up from the table, picking up his step a little as he moves through the house and digs out his phone, frowning at the display before he swipes it and puts the phone to his ear, ”Scott?”

_”Ian! How’s the family?”_

”Uh,” Ian hesitates, rubbing at the tense spot between his eyebrows, ”good, I guess? I only got here like half an hour ago, man, did something happen?”

 _”Look,”_ Scott says and clicks his tongue, something he always does when he’s about to ask for a favor he knows he shouldn’t, _”you’ve got the holidays off, I know, but hey! Are freelancers really ever truly off work?”_

”No,” Ian says and winces when he realizes that his refusal probably sounds a lot like he’s accepting his editor’s statement as true, ”no, Scott, I’m not gonna work until I get back, I told you.”

 _”Yes, I know, but listen to this!”_ Scott soldiers on. _”This kid calls some kinda radio shrink and tells the whole nation that he wants his dad to find a new wife.”_

”So?” Ian huffs. ”I heard it, what about it?”

 _”You heard it?”_ Scott repeats. _”You and the rest of America it seems, people are going crazy over it! Cute kid, 90s nostalgia, there’s something there I guess.”_

”This is not breaking news,” Ian sighs, ”you want me to work on Christmas Eve because of some fluff piece? You know I haven’t seen my family in six years, right?”

 _”Just turn on the radio for a sec,”_ Scott pleads his case, _”then tell me if you still think there’s nothing there.”_

Ian rolls his eyes but moves towards the kitchen anyway. ”Why the fuck are they still talking about this guy?”

 _”People started phoning in, in droves,”_ Scott laughs, _”it was crazy! The show is trending on Twitter and I’ve already seen like two Buzzfeed things circulating on Facebook.”_

”Debs,” Ian says when he steps into the kitchen, ”radio? Network America.”

Debbie doesn’t ask why, she just digs out the family laptop from a stack of magazines and sits down next to Liam to fold it open and start typing.

”Who is it?” Fiona asks, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel as she tries on an easy smile and looks at Ian, still lingering in the doorway.

”Editor,” Ian says and gestures towards his phone, ”just gotta humor him for a sec, then I’m turning this thing off.”

 _”Hey,”_ Scott protests weakly.

”Got it,” Debs says and hits the volume a couple of times until Doctor Lydia’s smooth voice fills the whole kitchen, even over the sound of boiling water and the sizzling pan.

 _”-and welcome back to the second hour of our three hour special,”_ she says, _”the first hour, we spoke to a young boy who called in to wish for his widowed father to find a new wife.”_

”What?” Fiona laughs and gets shushed by the whole room.

”Kid never actually said the wife was dead,” Ian comments drily, keeping his voice in a low mutter so he won’t get told off, too.

 _”I have my producers standing by with our young caller’s phone number,”_ Lydia continues, _”we are going to call him back right now and see if we can get his father on the line.”_

”Shit,” Ian mutters and shakes his head, ”poor guy.”

They all wait in a kind of ridiculous silence as the dull tone rings out from the computer, and Doctor Lydia tries to fill the dead air with pointless commentary.

 _”We have not called ahead to make sure if he’s willing to talk to us,”_ she narrates, the phone still ringing softly in the background, _”so everything you hear now is-, oh.”_

There’s a click and some scraping and rustling, before a man’s voice comes through.

_”Yeah?”_

_”Hello sir,”_ Doctor Lydia greets him, _”I’m Doctor Lydia Albright with Network America and I’m calling because-”_

 _”Ey, lady,”_ the man cuts her off, _”whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying so…”_

Ian’s staring at the laptop, ears strained and neck prickling and heart beating louder and faster by the second as he tries to talk himself out of what he already knows. He knows that voice like he knows his own home.

 _”No, I’m not selling anything,”_ Doctor Lydia assures the man with a soft chuckle, _”your son called my program an hour ago to tell me his Christmas wish, do you want to know what it was?”_

_”Who is this?”_

_”Doctor Lydia Albright,”_ Doctor Lydia repeats, slowly, _”of Network America, and you are on the air.”_

 _”What the-,”_ the disembodied, familiar voice says, his sentence ending in a long bleep.

”Fuck,” Ian whispers and is hardly aware of what he’s doing when he drops the phone from his ear and disconnects the call to his editor.

 _”You are on the air,”_ Doctor Lydia reiterates, sounding a little exasperated now, _”your son called my program and told me that you seem down and lonely after the passing of your wife, he thought you might feel better if you could find some comfort in new companionship-”_

Ian can hardly register what Doctor Lydia’s saying as she recaps the last hour again, and when his phone starts ringing he absently picks it up just to silence it, and then shoves it down the pocket of his jeans.

_”What the- BLEEP -are you talking about?”_

”Speak of the devil,” Lip suddenly huffs, ”and the devil is on the fucking radio! That _is_ Mickey, isn’t it?”

”Yes, shush!” Debbie quiets him and glances up at Ian who slowly sits down on the chair next to her. Doctor Lydia is still talking.

_”-tell me, have you been feeling depressed lately?”_

Mickey scoffs and Ian thinks he might hang up, the Mickey he knew would have hung up a long time ago.

 _”Listen, alright?”_ he says instead. _”First of all, the- BLEEP -ain’t dead, just got my thumb outta my- BLEEP -long enough to divorce her, BLEEP -ing finally. Now, I don’t know why Yev thought it was a good idea to call some quack radio doctor and say she’s dead, but whatever, right? He’s five and he likes to stir- BLEEP -up.”_

_”Please sir, mind your language, you’re on the air.”_

Mickey snorts. _”Hey, you called me.”_

 _”I feel like there might be some unspoken tension at home that made your son call the program tonight,”_ Doctor Lydia soldiers on, still trying to save the segment, _”I may have jumped to conclusions about your ex-wife but the fact still remains; he called us and asked for help. Why do you think that is?”_

Mickey sighs. _”Yeah, well f- BLEEP -if I know… I’ll make sure to talk to the little- BLEEP -head about that, Doctor Whatever, but unless you got the exact thing I’m lookin’ for right there at the station, don’t think talking to you about this bull- BLEEP -’s gonna help me much.”_

Doctor Lydia hums. _”And what is it you’re looking for?”_

Ian expects to hear the line go dead, or just a long string of shrill bleeps, but it’s not what he gets.

 _”Redhead,”_ Mickey mutters reluctantly, and then sighs, _”uh-, bat-shit crazy? Packin’ nine inches.”_

 _”Thank you for talking to us,”_ Doctor Lydia quickly terminates the call, Mickey’s line going quiet a split second too late to censor the inappropriate request, _”the next hour we will talk about resolutions and how they make us-”_

The silence hangs heavy in the kitchen when Debbie folds the laptop closed and shuts down Doctor Lydia’s quick prattle. Ian knows they’re all looking at him but he doesn’t know what they want him to do. He doesn’t know what to do.

”At least we know one thing for sure,” Lip speaks up after a few long moments, everyone, including Ian, turning to look at him, ”Mickey’s at home _right now._ ”

”Yeah,” Debbie lights up, ”they called the house, he’s at the house-, Ian, you should go there now!”

”Shit,” Ian mutters and gets up, walking a few feet towards the back door before turning again, ”fuck-, I can’t just… can I?”

”How many big-dicked redheads do you think he’s banged?” Lip clearly tries to encourage him, but somehow only manages to make it worse. ”He’s totally hung up on you, dude, if you want him, you know-, just go get him!”

Ian always used to turn to Lip for advice, growing up, but when it came to Mickey he never really listened. Lip told him to move on, Lip told him he could do better, that falling for a Milkovich meant that _anyone else_ would be better, and Ian had chuckled and nodded and cracked some kinda joke but he _hadn’t listened_. Because he knew Lip was wrong, for the first time since Ian was born he knew that he understood something Lip didn’t, and that falling in love with Mickey was the first thing he had that was truly his own.

It’s been six years and maybe it’d just been some kinda stupid teenage love, but Ian’s never forgotten how Mickey made him feel. And now he’s pulled by that same gravitational force he felt back then, and he can’t ignore it. He never could.

”I need to see him,” he mumbles to himself and looks up at his part confused, part excited family; Debbie providing most of the excitement.

”Okay, sweetie,” Fiona starts, a little helplessly, but changes her tune when Ian turns to march out of the kitchen, ”wait, what-, right now?”

”Yeah,” Ian insists as he grabs his parka off the suitcase, still standing where he left it by the stairs, ”sorry, I-”

He frowns and pauses to put on the coat, looking up at the faces staring out at him from the kitchen.

”I’ll come back, I just-,” he says and hesitates, shrugging when he can’t think of anything more reasonable than a vague, _insistent_ feeling, ”I need to see him.”

”Can’t you go after dinner?” Fiona asks, but she sounds more amused than annoyed at this point. Flashing them a nervous grin, Ian shakes his head and starts moving towards the door.

”Start without me!” he calls out as he leaves, bursting out in the cold dark evening, his breath puffing out in front of him when he hesitates on the porch for a second before bounding down the stairs and out the gate, jogging the short distance to the Milkovich house.

He gets all the way through the gate and up the steps, and knocking on the door, before remembering that he isn’t at all prepared. He’s got nothing, nothing except ’I need to see you’ - which admittedly has worked wonders in the past, but probably isn’t gonna cut it now.

’I still love you and I still think about you every day,’ is what he wants to say, but that would be ridiculous. No, no he just needs to see him, see that he’s fine, that he’s not scared anymore and that he’s not got any more of those nasty bruises, Ian just needs to see him and then he can go back home. Drive back to Nashville. Finally, truly, move on.

He blinks when the door cracks open to an empty vestibule. There’s warmth and sound hitting him in the cold silence outside, but there’s no trace of what he expected to see; powder pale skin, icy blue eyes, jet black hair, that baffled scowl he always wore when Ian managed to piss him off and please him all at once. Ian blinks at the empty space and wonders if he should push the door open and invite himself, it’s not like it would be for the first time if he did.

”Hey mister,” a voice snaps him out of his confusion and gets him to look down at the little boy partially shielded by the door and obviously waiting for him to say something, ”what do you want?”

”Uhh,” Ian chokes out, mouth dry and eyes wide as the kid’s frown graduates to a full blown scowl. It’s all there; powder pale, icy blue, jet black. He looks so much like his dad. 

”Christ-, Yevy close the fucking door,” Mickey’s voice calls from somewhere inside, grabbing Ian by the guts and squeezing, _twisting_ , ”you’re letting all the heat out!”

”There’s a man outside!” Yevgeny yells back, turning away from Ian to face the living room. ”He won’t tell me what he wants!”

”I-,” Ian croaks but gets the distinct feeling that he won’t be listened to, even if he manages to interject with something.

”Well, tell him to fuck off!” Mickey instructs and he sounds angry, but he looks happy; suddenly stepping into view. The big smile slips the second he lands his eyes on Ian. ”Gallagher?”

Ian forces himself to close his open mouth, pressing his lips together and breathing out through his nose, the breath he’s been holding on to billowing out in front of him like smoke. He’s still just ’Gallagher’, and Mickey looks _happy_. 

”I-,” he says again and looks down at Yevgeny, Mickey’s son, _Mickey’s son_ , ”sorry, I-”

He huffs and looks back up at Mickey, still standing in the same spot and staring at Ian like he’s some kinda ghost. A ghoul from his past, stirring up shit he probably left behind a long time ago. _If you give half a shit about me-, half._

”Made a mistake,” Ian mumbles and quickly turns away from the matching pairs of piercing glares to amble down the stairs and get the hell away from there as soon as possible.

_Don’t do this._

He picks up his step and stares at the fresh layer of snow being kicked up under his boots as he walks back home, shaking his head at his own hopeless stupidity when he thinks he hears the sound of quick steps behind him.

 _”Don’t,”_ Mickey’s voice echoes through his head and Ian is too busy berating himself to realize it’s not a memory, until Mickey speaks up again, ”don’t fucking leave, come on-, Ian!”

Ian stops.

”Ian,” Mickey says again, softer this time, like he’s trying it out, ”don’t leave.”

Ian turns around, and there he is. His hair is a little longer, combed back in a loose quiff, like it’s barely dry from a shower and he’s been running his fingers through it, one stray piece falling down his forehead. He’s a little broader, his chest and shoulders all caught up with his wide gait, but Ian thinks his face might be thinner, more grown up. He’s wearing sweats and a loose, very ugly Christmas sweater, his boots are untied and his winter jacket is open. His bared neck is so pale in the cold, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows and lets out a slow breath and meets Ian’s starving eyes.

He’s got so many things he wants to say to Mickey, but he doesn’t know where to start.

”You look good,” he says, closing his eyes with a wince when Mickey huffs. He hadn’t meant to say that. But when he opens his eyes again, Mickey’s smiling, oh God, he’s smiling so wide and free and Ian feels the warmth of long summer nights and beers and smokes and sex rising in him, defying the midwinter cold.

”Shit, Gallagher,” Mickey chuckles and Ian doesn’t miss the way his gaze dips and the tip of his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, ”the fuck are you doing here?”

Ian shakes his head but doesn’t look away. He’s here visiting his family, he’s only here for a couple of days, he wanted to see Mickey, he just wanted to see if he was okay.

”Heard you got divorced,” he says instead, suffering from a complete brain-to-mouth disconnect. He grins when Mickey’s eyebrows fly up in a perfect arch.

”Oh yeah?” Mickey hums, and he’s still smiling. Did he always smile this much? Ian used to remember him angry and hurtful, but over the last few years all he _ever_ sees when he thinks of his ex are the smirks and the grins when they talked, and the pleased smiles when Ian turned him around and pressed up against him. Ian had dismissed the selective memories as rose-tinted nostalgia, but here he is. He looks like all of Ian’s best memories come to life again.

”Yeah,” Ian huffs and shrugs, ”yeah, I was-, I was listening to the radio and-”

Mickey groans and tips his head back for a second, before quickly locking his eyes back on Ian.

”Fuck, you heard that?” he complains, squinting at Ian when he chuckles.

”Yeah, Mick,” Ian says, ”I heard it.”

”Fucking kid called them when I was at work,” Mickey huffs, but Ian thinks he still knows him well enough to see that he’s less angry and more embarrassed about the whole thing, ”busting my ass to put food on the table for that ungrateful little shit and this is what I get? He rats me out to some fucking radio shrink, can you believe it?”

”Kids,” Ian agrees but can’t help smiling at the way Mickey talks about his son, still in circles and pretending to be some kinda badass who couldn’t care less, but shit, Ian thinks the veil sure has thinned with time, every sharp angle of his words and voice and face softened by clear adoration for his child. 

”Yeah,” Mickey huffs and shifts his stance a little, his gaze dipping like he’s taking Ian in, or like he’s being reminded of why Ian decided to pull such a pussy move and run away when the going got tough. Maybe he feels as sick about it as Ian does.

”You eh-,” Ian starts, the words staggering for a second when Mickey’s eyes snap back up at him, ”you really disappointed them, I think. They were callin’ you up expecting Nora Ephron and what they got was Quentin Tarantino. You really had them working that profanity delay.”

Mickey’s pleased smirk is suddenly screwed up in disbelief.

”They fuckin’ censored me?” he asks, properly offended by the idea and glaring incredulously at Ian when he chuckles.

”Yeah, Mickey,” Ian says and grins when the corners of Mickey’s lips twitch, ”they fuckin’ censored you.”

Mickey doesn’t immediately shoot anything back and the joking tone kinda fizzles as they stare at each other for a few long seconds, only snapping out of it when there’s a flash of light behind Ian and they both move off the street to the sidewalk and out of the way of the slow car, creeping past them through the light snow.

When the car disappears around a corner and leaves them in silence once more, Mickey takes a step back and jerks his head in the direction of his house.

”Come on,” he says, and it doesn’t sound much like a question at all, ”fucking cold as balls out here, man.”

Ian knows he probably should go back home, to his family, but he doesn’t. He nods and follows Mickey back to the Milkovich house instead, down the street, up the concrete steps, five feet behind him the whole way, eyes fixed on his neck, on the bright patch of pale skin showing over his open coat and practically reflexive under the dull streetlights.

He doesn’t have a lot of warm, fuzzy memories of Mickey’s old house, but whatever they are, they’re all kinda overwritten by the last time he was here. Walking inside Mickey’s bedroom and seeing all the ways he didn’t belong in there anymore, no matter how obvious Mickey’d tried to make it that he wanted to continue whatever they’d been doing, his new bride and their baby on the way be damned. Three times Ian had thought he was seconds away from death in that house, but it had somehow hurt him more to stand there and tell Mickey he was leaving and not for a moment expecting him to fight for him to stay.

He’d been so hurt and _done_ that he’d ignored all of Mickey’s subtle signals. He’d been so good at reading him, at understanding what Mickey really meant when he joked and jabbed and dismissed, but he hadn’t been able to take it anymore. The constant doubt, the voice at the back of his head telling him he’d imagined the whole thing. Imagined peeling back layer after layer and finding someone inside Mickey wholly worthy of all the tough times and heartache. He’d felt like a first class fool, jumping through endless hoops and only getting scraps back for his efforts.

Walking away hadn’t been a _bad_ decision, anyone probably would have after all that. But Ian isn’t anyone, he’s stubborn and stupid and hopeless and still feels shame more than anything else when he thinks of how he ended things with Mickey. Realistically he knows he was right to put himself first for once, but there’s a reason why he’s never been very good at that shit and, over the years since, he’s regularly found himself returning to that decision and _wondering_. Wondering what he could have had with Mickey if he’d gone with his gut and swallowed his pride, and instead decided to stay and protect the person he loved.

But fact is he _didn’t_.

Ian shuts his eyes for a second and lets out a slow breath to calm the torrent of thoughts rushing through him when they climb the steps and Mickey’s pushing the door open, the warmth and light hitting them and swallowing them up as Mickey bustles inside and Ian just follows. The house is nice and toasty, even in the vestibule, and there are indistinct voices speaking in another room and mingling with the music coming from the TV in the living room, turned down low and casting its blinking colors over the parts of the room Ian can see from his spot by the door, carefully closing it behind himself. 

It’s warm, it’s calm, it’s not nearly as cluttered or unkept as Ian remembers it. Ian thinks it kinda feels like stepping into a house that has been freshly exorcised of all its ghosts, like a tension has been lifted from the floors and the peeling walls, off the sagging ceiling, everything snapping into place as the demons rush back to hell. In reality, he figures Mickey must have spent actual money on filling the cracks and sanding the floors and reinforcing the ceiling. It’s far from a full fucking home makeover, but all the little changes kinda add up to a whole different immediate feeling, just peering in from the hallway like some snoopy old bitty.

”Shoes,” Mickey grunts and snaps Ian out of his thoughts.

”What?” he croaks, elegantly, and stares down at his feet, the snow slowly melting off his boots and into the scruffy doormat.

”Shoes off,” Mickey clarifies without turning around, stepping on his own heels to kick off his untied boots and carelessly chuck them off to the side, ”kid’s dragging in mud enough on his own without you helpin’ out, got me mopping up after him like some sucker if I’m not on his ass about taking all his shit off _before_ running inside.”

Ian dips his head to hide his helpless smile, pretending to focus on his task as he kicks off his shoes and uses the side of his foot to shove them out of the way a little.

”Thought you weren’t tidy,” Ian teases, happy to lean into the light tone.

”Says who?” Mickey asks, looking back at Ian over his shoulder as he starts moving into the living room.

”Your son,” Ian huffs, ”on national radio.”

”Fucking kid,” Mickey sighs, but Ian thinks he can hear him smiling even as he follows him further inside the house and can’t see more than the back of his neck and ears, the spot right behind his jaw that had never failed to get him going when Ian would ghost his lips over it, ”what else did he say?”

”Um,” Ian swallows and fights against the flush of heat spreading out from the pit of his stomach and his imagination racing to catch up to old memories, as he lingers in the vestibule to shrug off his parka, ”said he thought you needed a new wife.”

”Fucking kid,” Mickey mutters again, a little less _obviously_ affectionate.

”It was cute,” Ian admits, feeling a strange desire to defend the kid who, until now, has only ever been this almost obscene result of his relationship with Mickey, this immovable _fact_ to which he’s never dared put a name or face. Until now. ”Kinda reminded me of someone.”

”Yeah?” Mickey starts moving again, slowly towing Ian further inside the house by his invisible, magnetic pull. ”Can’t imagine who.”

Ian feels himself smile and open his mouth, possibly to say something he might instantly regret, when a sharp gasp from across the room cuts him off.

”Oh my God,” Mandy whispers when Ian looks up and sees her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, ”Ian.”

”Mandy,” Ian breathes out, everything else falling away for a second to make room for a whole different set of emotions, much less complicated and pretty much all boiling down to a great sense of relief at just seeing her again; looking alive and well. 

He only manages one quick step forward before she’s in his arms, her face buried in his neck and arms clinging around him. He shuts his eyes and feels himself relax, and tries not to crush her when he can’t help squeezing her just that little bit closer.

”Jesus.”

Ian opens his eyes at Mickey’s annoyed mutter, only to see his retreating back as he walks past them and towards the kitchen. His first instinct is to let go of Mandy and amble after him like some lost dog, convinced that Mickey might disappear if he lets him out of his sight for as much as a second, but he stays with Mandy and settles on watching her brother until he can’t see him anymore, obscured by the living room’s weird layout.

”Asshole!” Mandy suddenly exclaims and takes a step back and out of his arms to wipe angrily under her eyes and hit him in the shoulder. He refrains from mentioning that her response is an exact match to Lip’s, even while he can’t help smiling at the thought.

”I know,” he says and laughs when she rolls her eyes at him.

”You better fucking know,” she wholeheartedly seems to agree, ”what are you doing here?”

”Just home for the holidays,” Ian explains, glancing around the living room and towards the kitchen where he thinks he can hear Mickey casually arguing with someone, ”heard Mickey on the radio, so I thought…”

”Nice,” Mandy bites out and scrunches up her nose at him, ”so we’re afterthoughts! Gee, Ian, you sure know how to make girl feel special.”

Ian grins at her teasing tone, he’s made a good friend or two since he left Chicago but none ever really matched the unbreakable, _easy_ friendship he’d once had with Mandy. He’s missed her in ways he didn’t even know until now.

”Didn’t know you still lived here,” Ian tries to excuse himself, even though he doesn’t actually think she’s looking for an explanation, ”didn’t know if…”

”If douchebag wanted to see you?” Mandy fills in with a pointed smirk.

Pursing his lips together, Ian resists the urge to ask her about Mickey. Mandy just nods and moves on.

”I _don’t_ live here,” she says, something slightly defiant to her tone, ”got my own place in Wicker Park.”

”Jesus, Mands,” Ian huffs and shoves lightly at her shoulder, ”who’d you have to kill to land something like that?”

”Wouldn’t you like to know,” Mandy challenges, narrowing her eyes for a second before breaking out in a wide grin, ”guess you’ll have to see me again before you leave and convince me to tell you.”

Ian feels both relieved and instantly on edge again when he realizes what she’s saying. ”You’re not staying?”

”I’ve got a thing,” she says dismissively, glancing at her watch before looking at Ian again and giving him a soft smile, ”but maybe I could call and reschedule.”

”Bitch, get the fuck out!” Mickey complains from the kitchen, before the man follows the voice and he swaggers back out into the living room.

”Real nice, assface,” Mandy argues back, her pleasant voice instantly falling back to sound just like the thorny teenager Ian remembers, ”back the fuck off, he was my boyfriend first.”

Ian wants to pay attention to what they’re saying, their special brand of crude affection just one of the many things he’s sorely missed, but it’s like their voices fall away when he spots the woman walking out behind Mickey, Yevgeny clung to her hip and a pleased smirk on her red lips. She could have been anyone, she looks so entirely different from when Ian saw her last, but at the same time he thinks he’d never _not_ recognize her. The Russian. The wife. The mother. Svetlana. She’s here, and Ian isn’t sure what he expected but he never even once thought he’d have to see her again.

He still dreams about her, sometimes, although Mickey’s face is usually the only thing in focus when he does.

He feels seventeen again, he feels like he’s going to be sick. He feels like his face is still bruised and his hands are poison the way Mickey won’t let him touch him, backs away from him when he gets too close. He feels the bile and the hatred and the shame rush through him as he can’t look away from her and her sharp eyes meet his from across the room.

”Merry Christmas, asswipe,” Mandy sniggers next to him and the world manages to slowly tune back in when she pulls lightly at his elbow and he turns to blink down at her easy smile, ”come on.”

Ian lets her guide him back into the vestibule and out of sight.

”What is she doing here?” Ian whispers urgently when they’re alone, frowning when Mandy stops putting on her boots for a second to glance at him.

”Svetlana?” she asks and shrugs when he just widens his eyes in silent response. ”She lives here, Ian.”

”Thought they got divorced,” Ian mutters, trying real hard to not feel like it’s the same shit happening all over again, and he’s _still_ the fool for thinking he’s got any kinda chance or place in Mickey’s life.

”They did,” Mandy explains as she bends down to put on her second boot, ”they’re still family though, the divorce just means they get along better.”

Ian doesn’t get it, he didn’t get it then and he doesn’t get it now. 

”I don’t get it,” he admits and he thinks he sounds really pathetic.

”They were a complete shitshow together,” Mandy says and straightens up to face him as she puts on her coat, ”pretty sure they would’ve killed each other a long time ago if it hadn’t been for Yev. Turns out they probably just hated being married or something, ’cause they get along just fine now.”

Ian crosses his arms and bends his head, feeling like a grade A coward for pressing Mandy for details when he could turn around and ask Mickey directly.

Mickey. _Mickey gets along with her_. She’s the mother of his kid, she was just _anyone_ when she was forced upon them. A blunt object for Terry to wield.

And Ian had been so twisted up inside at the time, with hurt and jealousy and trauma it would take him years to even acknowledge, that he’d actually managed to imagine Mickey having feelings for his bride to be. That maybe he’d really gotten everything so entirely wrong, and when Mickey told him they were nothing, that Ian was _nothing_ to him, it’d eventually started to sound like the truth.

”Made sense,” Mandy says and breaks Ian out of his thoughts, tilting his head up to look at her, ”not like it was gonna last, anyway, with Mickey being gay and all.”

Ian realizes that he must be staring at her, but he can’t get himself to stop.

”What?” she bites and frowns at him. ”Why are you looking like this is a surprise to you? Were you or were you not fucking my brother behind my back for two years?”

”Yeah, but-,” Ian huffs and shakes his head when nothing else comes to mind.

”Still can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she mutters and clicks her tongue, picking up a scarf that’s fallen to the floor and winding it around her neck, brushing back her hair. It’s blonde, Ian isn’t even sure he noticed that until now. 

”He came out?” Ian asks, and it feels like such an insignificant part of all this but he can’t think of anything else, staring at Mandy when she raises an exasperated eyebrow at him.

”Sure,” she shrugs, digging out a pair of slim leather gloves from a pocket and pulling them on, ”didn’t throw himself a fucking parade or anything, but he told us.”

Ian nods. He knows he’s gonna need to let Mandy go soon and he feels a little guilty, because right now he mostly wants her to stay so he can ask her more questions.

”Is he-,” he starts and winces at all the different ways he could ask this, not one of them likely to sound right, ”where is-, are you safe?”

Mandy scoffs and shoots Ian a hard glare before she most likely sees something in his eyes that manages to chip away at her defensive edge.

”Dad’s locked up,” she tells him, her voice tight and clipped, ”got life this time, so… fingers crossed, right?”

”I’m sorry,” Ian whispers and leans back against the wall behind him, cushioned by a couple of soft jackets, ”I should’ve-”

Closing his eyes he only feels her step up to him, her gloved hands cold when she takes him by the cheeks and rests their foreheads together.

”We never wanted you to save us, Ian,” she says with a dry smirk when he looks at her. Then she lets go and backs away, putting a hand on the door and pausing to glance back at him and shrug. ”Guess I just never thought you’d leave us like that.”

Ian frowns and bends his head over the sound of the door opening, the cold immediately sneaking inside and reminding him of the new hole he’s got through the heel of his left sock.

”Ian,” Mandy says and gets him to look back up at her, ”leave again without saying goodbye and I _will_ kill you.”

Ian stares at her for a second, because he’s got no doubt she both could and would, before cracking a small smile and nodding.

”Deal,” he says and chuckles when she skips down the front steps, flipping him off over her shoulder.

The living room is empty when he steps back into it, the TV still on low and soft voices coming out of what _used_ to be Mandy’s old room. He stops and listens, if only to figure out if Mickey’s in there too, but he quickly realizes that it’s just a woman’s voice and that she’s not speaking English.

”She gone?” Mickey’s question is loud and brash and startles him a little. Ian twists on spot and tries to catch sight of him, frowning when Mickey’s still nowhere around to be seen.

”Yeah,” he answers anyway, slowly making his way towards the kitchen, figuring it’s his best bet, ”Mick?”

”Sit down or whatever,” Mickey tells him, his disembodied voice most definitely coming from the kitchen, ”want something to drink?”

”Can’t,” Ian says and hesitates, feeling both strange and strangely safe talking to an empty room, ”meds.”

He holds his breath as he waits for the usual questions to start raining down on him, but they don’t come. Instead Mickey comes walking out, barely even stopping when he raises his eyebrows at Ian still standing in the middle of the room.

Ian watches him move over to the couch and sit down, putting a foot up on the table and maneuvering himself so he can dig out the remote from somewhere underneath him. He’s aimlessly flipping through the channels when Ian steps closer, crossing his arms uncomfortably as he rounds the couch and gets a better view of Mickey’s relaxed face.

”You, um-,” Ian starts, attempting to school his voice into sounding like he’s just about to ask a casual, polite question, ”the house… it looks nice.”

Mickey snorts and glances up at Ian for a second, before returning his eyes to whatever’s on the TV.

”Yeah, well,” he mutters offhandedly, ”just ’cause I grew up in a shithole doesn’t mean my kid’s gotta. We renovated, like a couple of fucking middle-class twats. Did the walls and floors myself.”

Ian smiles at the light, reluctant pride in Mickey’s voice when he can’t help taking credit for his work.

”It looks great,” Ian reiterates and nods, even though Mickey’s not looking at him, ”you live here with-, with her?”

”Yeah,” Mickey sighs and shifts on the couch, sinking down a little further into the soft seat, ”sorta… you should see the basement floor, man, got my own bathroom and everything down there after we fixed it up. It’s a pretty sweet setup.”

”You don’t want to move out?” Ian asks and frowns when Mickey shrugs.

”Nah,” he says, ”why would I? Never fucking liked being alone, you know that.”

Ian nods again and rolls his shoulders, trying to push the tension out and not let his own discomfort bleed over on Mickey’s life, on his decisions and unyielding ability to accept things for what they are. Suddenly feeling kinda awkward, standing in the middle of the room on his own, Ian walks over to the couch and sits down next to Mickey, leaving less than a foot between their shoulders. He feels himself relax when Mickey doesn’t shift or move away from him, but instead holds out the remote one last time to press down on the volume until it’s so low Ian can barely hear anything coming off the TV at all.

Tossing the remote to land in the armchair on his other side, Mickey drops his hand down on the couch, practically closing the small gap between their thighs. Ian doesn’t really think when he reaches out to gently trace the tips of his fingers down Mickey’s knuckles and across the slightly faded ink of his tattoos, flattening his whole hand over Mickey’s, covering it completely and giving it a quick squeeze before reality manages to catch up with him. It still takes him a little while to move his hand away, resting it on his thigh and digging his fingers into the coarse fabric of his jeans in an attempt to distract himself from the pulsating tingles pushing up through his skin wherever it’d made contact with Mickey’s.

Crazy is not a word he’s particularly fond of, but this is fucking nuts, insane, loco.

”Bat-shit crazy,” he suddenly remembers something Mickey said, not realizing he’s talking out loud until he sees Mickey glance his way out of the corner of his eye, ”on the radio, you-, why are you looking for bat-shit crazy?”

Mickey sighs and doesn’t look at him anymore when Ian twists to face him more fully. 

”Fuck off,” he mutters and for a couple of long seconds Ian thinks that might be all he’s gonna get, ”you know why.”

Ian groans and slumps down on the couch, leaning his head back and staring up at the ceiling. It used to be yellowed and cracked, stained by nicotine and marred by the occasional stray bullet.

”Really don’t,” he says, shaking his head at the smooth, clean plaster, ”six years, Mickey… you ever think of me?”

Mickey doesn’t answer, so Ian purses his lips together and resigns himself to taking his silence as a ’no’.

”Was gonna-,” Mickey starts and stops to snort at himself, ”was gonna go get you… from the army, or whatever.”

Ian frowns at the ceiling.

”But when I tried to find out where you were, they’d never heard of you,” Mickey continues, sounding kinda like he could do without telling Ian any of this, ”guess your plan worked out real fucking good, huh?”

It’d been a sore spot for a while, but Ian’s able to laugh about it now.

”Yeah,” he huffs, ”turns out paying shit money for a fake ID isn’t enough to scam your way into the army underage. Didn’t even get on the damn buss.”

He can’t help smiling when Mickey chuckles at his useless escape plan. Ian had really wanted to join the army, once, but not a day goes by now that he doesn’t thank the universe for letting him doge _that_ particular bullet. He would’ve ended up in a world of trouble if he’d actually managed to enlist under a false name, seventeen and manic and on the run.

”I went everywhere, lookin’ for your ass,” Mickey admits, effectively wiping the smile off Ian’s face, ”talked to anyone I could think of, even that gross fucking pedo doctor you liked to parade in front of me, like I’d be jealous of that pruny sack of shit.”

”You talked to Ned?” Ian asks, frowning as he tries to think of the last time he’d spared even so much as a fleeting thought for the guy.

”Not an entire waste of space, turns out, he knew where to find you,” Mickey reluctantly mutters, ”still kicked him in the balls, just lettin’ you know.”

”Okay,” Ian smiles. Ned had never been more than a distraction, a means to an end, an easy way to get a rise out of Mickey. To figure out if Mickey actually gave a fuck about him or not. It’d been a jerk move, for sure, but it’d also _worked_.

”Saw you,” Mickey sighs, ”couple of times, at that obnoxious fuckin’ club.”

Ian swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing uncomfortably the way his head’s angled back. Here he thought no one’d been looking for him. He’s almost wishing no one’d been looking for him.

”Sorry,” he says, even though he’s not entirely sure why. He did a lot of things at those clubs he’s not proud of now, and even more stuff he knows he’d never want Mickey to know about, let alone witness.

”Should’ve just-,” Mickey starts and stops, sounding frustrated, ”just fucking bent you over my shoulder and carried you home, or something-, anything.”

Ian winces at the idea, glancing sideways at Mickey in time to see him smile, his sharp profile bent and softened as he stares down at his hands, resting on his lap and fiddling with a plastic lighter.

”Kept going back,” he continues, suddenly frowning as his face lights up when he flicks the lighter, ”just watching you dance or whatever, like another fucking creep… until this one night everything went from shit to worse.”

”You were there,” Ian whispers, eyes wide when Mickey turns his head and looks at him.

Ian doesn’t remember much of that night, but Clayton told him he’d mentioned Mickey’s name before the sedatives really started kicking in. Considering the circumstances, delusion had seemed like the most reasonable explanation for that one. Never in a million years has Ian ever imagined that Mickey’d actually been there.

”Some asshole called the police,” Mickey shrugs and looks away again, ”you were not… all there, but fuck-, not like you were gonna _actually_ stab the guy. Was tryna talk you down and all I could think of was shit you’d told me about your mom, you know? So when the cops showed and tried to arrest you, I convinced them that you needed a fucking hospital, not gettin’ thrown in the drunk tank or slapped with some bogus assault charge.”

”Jesus,” Ian breathes out, he had no idea. His own memory of that night - week, month - is just a blur ending in a hospital bed, strapped down and doped up a treat.

”I messed up,” Mickey nods to himself, ”knew it the second they drove you away… should’ve taken you home with me instead.”

”Mick,” Ian tries.

”It’s whatever,” Mickey interrupts him, waving a hand at Ian to let him talk, ”knew you wouldn’t want ’em calling your family and I remembered you tellin’ me how that Clayton guy was the one who knocked up your mom, not Frank, and that he was some loaded North Side prick.”

Mickey shrugs like it’s no big deal, but he still won’t look at Ian.

”Figured they could contact him instead,” he says, ”at least you could get him to pay for some decent drugs that way, maybe get you some real help.”

Ian blinks away the tears threatening to blur his sight.

”Can’t believe you were there, that you did all that,” he sighs, shaking his head when Mickey shrugs again, ”why didn’t you stay?”

”Stayed until I knew someone else was gonna be there for you,” Mickey admits, ”pretty fucking sure I was the last person you wanted to see, waking up in that place and after everything going down between us.”

Ian’s not going to argue with him on that one, he was all kinds of messed up back then and probably wouldn’t have liked having Mickey around to see him at what would turn out to be some of the lowest points of his life. He can regret it all he wants, now, that he didn’t have Mickey waiting on him to wake up at the hospital, or get him through the aftermath. That doesn’t mean he would’ve liked it or been able to accept it then.

”Yeah, you would’ve told me to fuck off,” Mickey glances at Ian with a knowing smirk, before frowning and looking away again, ”anyway, guess the old sperm-donor stepped up, huh?”

”Yeah, guess so,” Ian says and tries to smile, swallowing back the lump in his throat, ”meds, therapy, school… he let me stay with him, took me with him to Nashville, supported me through college.”

”College,” Mickey huffs, a slight smile pulling at the corner of his lips, ”the fuck did you do in college?”

”Studied,” Ian snarks and laughs when Mickey rolls his eyes, ”journalism.”

Mickey sucks his teeth and shakes his head. ”You and your dumbass ideas.”

”Work for a couple of web magazines,” Ian says, still kinda laughing when he’s turning his eyes back on the ceiling and the general absurdity of life seems to hit him out of nowhere, and it’s just _funny_ , ”think I might hate it, actually.”

”So quit,” Mickey offers with a soft snort, ”jesus, never fucking satisfied, are you?”

”Wanna help people,” Ian admits, staring at the ceiling when he feels Mickey shift next to him, ”do something that matters.”

”The daily toil of us mortal nine-to-five suckers not good enough for you, He-Man?” Mickey teases him.

”Nah, it’s alright,” Ian immediately starts to backtrack, wincing slightly at the ceiling, he’s never liked complaining about work, ”it’s a cushy job, mostly writing buzzy things about whatever, it’s not changing the world but it covers all my bills and meds and shit, so, you know… it’s good.”

”Uh-huh,” Mickey hums, clearly not buying it. His smile is distractingly fond when Ian glances his way to see him looking right back, for once.

”It’s good,” Ian insists, because he’s nothing if not fucking stubborn, and grins when Mickey raises a knowing eyebrow in silent response. Ian huffs and rests his head back again, closing his eyes and stealing a quick moment of just enjoying the feeling of having Mickey sit so close to him.

”Anyway,” he says and swallows, he’s never liked talking about this stuff with anyone, ”’m sick, you know? Not like anyone’s gonna line up to put me in charge of anything that matters.”

God fucking dammit, he feels like the worst kinda self-pitying asshole, he hates the sound of himself whenever he tries to open up about his insecurities. He squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a slow breath in the silence.

”Fuck that,” Mickey eventually decides, his voice all casual and his eyes still on the TV when Ian tips his head to the side to frown at him, ”so what-, your bullshit fucking teenage army wet dream was a bust? _Their_ fucking loss, man, besides… plenty of ways to exercise that hero complex of yours without getting shot at, if that’s what you wanna do.”

It sounds so easy. Ian’s used to well-meaning advice telling him he might have to focus on taking care of himself before thinking about doing the same for anyone else, and it’s never sounded right to him. He’s pretty shit at taking care of himself, but he can’t help thinking he could be good at helping others. 

He’d forgotten how _easily_ Mickey always seemed ready to believe in him.

”What do you do?” Ian asks, happy to shift focus away from himself while turning back to stare up at nothing.

”Me?” Mickey scoffs and Ian can practically hear how he smirks. ”I pick a career and fucking stick with it, that’s what I do. I work in security.”

Ian purses his lips together for a second, but then surrenders to the wide smile taking over his whole face and slowly thawing every inch of his skin.

”Missed you,” he says and sighs, ”fuck… wish things worked out different, you know? For us.”

He tilts his head to the side again in time to see Mickey shrug, eyes stuck firmly on the silent TV.

”Is what it is,” he mutters, ”probably for the best.”

Frowning at Mickey’s dismissive tone, Ian studies his profile for signs of some underlying emotion.

”You don’t regret any of it?” he asks when he sees nothing.

”Regret,” Mickey sighs and rubs at his bottom lip, hesitating before he lets his hand drop and absently shakes his head, ”fuck kinda good’s that gonna do, huh? You did what you had to do, I did what I had to do… not like I can change any of that shit now, right? Wringing my fucking hands and wishing for-, whatever, don’t even fucking know what else there is, other than what I’ve got.”

Suddenly agitated, Ian heaves himself out of the couch and ignores Mickey’s quiet grumbling at being jostled as he takes a couple of steps away, before stopping and turning around.

”You-,” he starts and stops, wincing at himself and frowning at the way Mickey’s just sitting there, quietly waiting for him to say his piece, ”you can’t just-”

Pressing his lips together Ian stares at Mickey and shakes his head at himself, at the thoughts dashing around inside him and refusing to line up properly. There are things he wants to say, things he wants Mickey to know, but he feels like there’s this insurmountable disconnect between his feelings and his throat and mouth, and words that make sense. Words that do his feelings any kind of real justice.

He’s never been good at expressing himself. Mickey was always better at that shit, between the two of them, even while he’d never said the things Ian had wanted to hear.

”You can’t just-,” he tries again, but with the same constipated result, ”fuck!”

He feels himself start to shake, a slight tremor in his hands that only accentuates how fucking unstable he feels when he tries to dig a little deeper, when he tries to deal with the stuff underneath his carefully maintained surface, the stuff he’s come to think of as _real_. Most of which, honestly, have got to do with Mickey, one way or another.

”You-,” Ian sighs and closes his eyes, pinching them shut over the sight of Mickey’s unnerving patience with his bullshit, ”you were fucking raped, Mickey, we-”

He pulls in a quick breath and opens his eyes again, expecting to see Mickey’s face contorted with fury. His jaw is clenched and he’s staring at Ian like he’s trying to pierce right through him, but he’s not throwing punches or yelling, or lashing out to shut Ian down. Ian slowly lets out the air in his lungs and feels like there’s something releasing inside him.

”We were,” he says and puts a hand to his chest, rubbing at the center of his ribs, ”and you married her, Mick, it’s sick-, it’s not your fucking fault and no, you can’t change it, but it’s sick what happened to you and I don’t get how you don’t regret-”

”What?” Mickey sighs when Ian hesitates, but he sounds more tired than angry.

”Me,” Ian mutters and dips his head when Mickey only scowls up at him, ”I don’t know-”

”Hey,” Mickey interrupts him, and his jarringly amused tone makes Ian look up at him in time to see him stand and take a couple of careful steps closer, ”jesus, Ian… this really what you wanna talk about right now?”

Ian huffs and can’t fucking help the dopey grin flashing across his face when Mickey raises his eyebrows at him.

”Hi, hello, how the fuck are you,” Mickey clearly jokes, trying to ease the tense mood, ”how about that time we got brutally abused by my dad, remember that? Yeah-”

Ian puts a hand over his eyes and tries not to laugh, shoulders shaking and the pressing heaviness on his mind lifting at the sound of Mickey’s soft chuckle.

”Yeah, you just jump right in there,” he continues, ”let’s not build up to it or anything, no.”

”Sorry,” Ian admits and drops his hand, wincing at the way Mickey’s smirking at him, fond and knowing and like it’s been no time at all since the last time they kissed. 

”I was afraid,” Mickey says, suddenly serious again, ”you get that, right? And yeah, ’course I wish I’d like, fucking talked to you about it, or whatever, instead of getting piss drunk and kicking your teeth in-”

Ian dips his gaze down and then up again, locking it with Mickey’s and shaking his head. It feels like a minor revelation when he realizes that he’s never been looking for Mickey to apologize for doing that, or for _anything_ that happened back then. It’s not why he’s here. He’s not really here to trudge up old shit either, or to offer some kinda lame apology of his own. He’s here ’cause he’s been living for six years with a kind of stubborn, stupid hope, a fixed idea that Mickey somehow had been _it_ and maybe all they ever needed to be happy, _together_ , was better timing.

”But, fuck,” Mickey sighs, the tip of his tongue worrying at his bottom lip for a second before he continues, ”did all that shit because it felt like all I could do, you know? Didn’t hurt you or marry her or fucking bend to my old man’s will ’cause I _wanted_ it.”

Ian nods. ”I know, I didn’t mean-”

”No, I know,” Mickey scoffs and rolls his eyes, smirking a little when Ian can’t help jutting his chin out at being interrupted, ”end of the day, there’s a little kid in that room over there who’s got a dad, you know? One who’s never gonna make him feel like shit for liking what he likes or bein’ who he is.”

Ian feels himself deflate slightly at the mention of Yevgeny, just another piece of Mickey that maybe could have been a little bit _his_ , too, if only he’d stuck around to bear it out.

”He’s a little shit, don’t get me wrong,” Mickey clarifies, ”but he’s a whole new person and he only exists ’cause I couldn’t help myself around you, ’cause you made me stupid and careless and happy. I can’t pick and fucking choose what to regret and not, ’cause it’s all just a bunch of steps, and this is where it’s lead me.”

Ian pulls in a shaky breath and suddenly realizes that Mickey’s slowly been walking closer, talking with the careless conviction he’s always had, but which now seems much more grounded and secure in a kind of freedom he’d _never_ had, growing up under his father’s thumb. It’s sexy as all fuck, and Ian almost feels a little lightheaded by the implications of what Mickey’s saying and the buzzing air between them as one more step nearly has the tips of their noses bumping together.

”Dad?”

Mickey takes half a step back and angles himself away at the sound of the small voice, leaving Ian to roam his eyes over the side of his face, breathing in their relative closeness and noticing all the small things that have changed since he saw him last. The fucking delightful little crow’s feet in the corner of his eyes, the line down the side if his mouth, the musky undertones of a new cologne. 

”Yeah, bud?” Mickey says and Ian forces himself to take a step back and look over at Mandy’s old door, which is cracked open to accommodate Yevgeny’s small frame.

”It’s bedtime,” the kid points out, his unicorn pyjamas taking some of the edge off his stern tone, ”I want my story.”

”Sure you do,” Mickey sighs and glances over at Ian, ”sorry, man, he won’t fucking sleep if I don’t sit down and read about the damned BFG for the literal millionth time. Might be a while.”

”It’s okay,” Ian promises and shakes his head, ”I should probably go anyway, kinda left my own welcome home dinner to come see you.”

Mickey grins triumphantly. ”Oh yeah?”

”Yeah,” Ian huffs and rolls his eyes, but still grins right back.

”Daaaaad,” Yevgeny whines, sleepiness and petulance suddenly making him sound more his age than he did before.

”Two fucking seconds, Yev, chill out,” Mickey tells him and waves him back inside his bedroom, ”just gotta see Ian out, alright? Say goodbye. Go back to bed and I’ll be right there.”

”Okay,” Yevgeny concedes and throws Ian a cautious look before cracking a small grin, ”goodbye, Ian!”

”Goodnight Yev,” Ian huffs out, but Yevgeny’s already disappeared back into his room.

”Come on,” Mickey prompts and walks them out to the vestibule, keeping Ian in silent company while he puts on his shoes and coat, his slow movements not doing much to drag it out and postpone the inevitable. 

Ian opens the door and steps outside before he turns to look back at Mickey. He’s about to say some lame goodbye and leave with his tail between his legs, when he opens his mouth and something else falls out.

”I loved you,” he says and feels like a cartoon character by the way his cheeks burn red against the cold air, seeing Mickey’s eyebrows climb all the way up his forehead, ”that is, I mean-”

Mickey grins at his floundering and it both helps and makes everything just a little bit worse.

”Wanted you to know that,” Ian soldiers on and swallows, shrugging at how devastatingly easy it feels to finally admit it out loud, ”I still-”

”Stop,” Mickey begs and for a split second Ian’s got his heart in his throat, thinking he’s gone too far and that this is it. The last time Ian tries and Mickey turns him down.

But then Mickey’s stepping up to him and into his view, into his immediate space, putting a warm hand to his cheek and holding his gaze for a second just to smile at him, before leaning in and slotting their lips together. Ian feels like he’s melting, his jaw falling open and tongue seeking out Mickey’s as he hunches over a little to press closer and deepen the kiss, his hands having a will of their own as they grab on to Mickey’s ugly Christmas sweater and hold on to his waist like he might disappear if they don’t.

Ian kinda nuzzles his cheek into the soft warmth of Mickey’s palm when they break apart, Mickey leaning back in his arms and looking up at him with half-lidded, clear eyes.

”No fucking chill,” he mutters and swallows, but he’s sounding just as wrecked as Ian’s feeling, ”save some for later, Romeo.”

Ian tightens his grip on Mickey’s waist and can’t help leaning in and softly rubbing their noses together, making Mickey smirk in a way that stokes a fire deep inside his gut.

”Later?” Ian asks, his voice coming out muddled and strange.

”Yeah, like-,” Mickey mumbles and clears his throat, ”don’t know… third date’s for banging, right? So fourth, maybe?”

Ian grins and leans back a little so he can look Mickey in the eyes.

”There’s gonna be dates?”

”Bet your ass there’s gonna be dates,” Mickey informs him, the pad of his thumb carefully tracing down the side of his mouth, ”keep up.”

”When?” Ian asks with a smile and steps with him when Mickey backs up, unconvincingly trying to move out of his arms.

”Tomorrow,” Mickey decides.

Ian shakes his head, smiling wider when Mickey frowns at him. ”Tomorrow’s Christmas.”

”So?” Mickey scoffs.

”So,” Ian says and ignores the fleeting thought that he’s supposed to be back on the road in two days, ”the day after tomorrow.”

Mickey sighs, a slight smirk betraying his feigned annoyance. ”Fine, guess that could work.”

”Pick you up at seven?” Ian suggests and reluctantly lets go of Mickey to take a couple of steps back, grinning wide when Mickey nods. ”And I promise I won’t tell you I love you until date four.”

Mickey snorts at Ian’s _complete_ lack of chill, but there’s no mistaking his pleased smile when Ian tacks on a finger gun and a wink to his sneaky confession, making Mickey cross his arms and shake his head, but also look at Ian like he might want to say it back.

Ian walks down the steps and turns around at the gate, looking back up at Mickey to see him standing in the doorway, watching him leave. Last time Ian left this house he thought he’d never come back, this time it only feels like a beginning, even as Mickey disappears into the house and closes the door behind him.

Slowly making his way back to his siblings, Ian doesn’t stop to think until he’s standing outside the house again, this time nothing but excited to step back inside and do whatever he needs to do to retie the bonds they might have broken over the years they’ve been apart.

He’s about to open the gate when he feels his pocket vibrate, and he’s not surprised when he unearths his phone to see that it’s his editor calling again. 

_”What the hell was that?”_ Scott immediately greets him when Ian accepts the call and puts the phone to his ear. _”I know, I know, it’s Christmas and you said you wouldn’t work but listen, Ian, I just need an answer. The guy wasn’t exactly Tom Hanks, but there’s something there, right? I mean, we could definitely work with the gay angle and-”_

”Scott,” Ian interrupts him with a huff, rolling his eyes at his editor’s misguided enthusiasm, ”I won’t be writing the story.”

_”But-”_

”I’m actually-,” Ian cuts him off before Scott has time to protest, smiling to himself when he quickly examines the thrill of excitement running up his spine and recognizes it for what it is; not a symptom or a problem, but a spark of life and a promise of something better still to come, ”I’m gonna need the rest of the week off, so maybe don’t call me about work until after New Year’s.”

 _”Oh-kay?”_ Scott says, sounding like he’s about to start arguing.

”And I’m gonna stay in Chicago for a while,” Ian decides, grinning wider at the sound of his own sure voice.

Scott sighs, the distant clatter of his keyboard telling Ian he’s probably already moved on to try and rope in someone else to write his story. _”Uh-huh, okay, for how long?”_

Ian tries to imagine his future; where he’ll live and what he’ll do, but all he can see is Mickey’s knowing smirk and all he can feel is the press of his soft lips. Ian’s life has been completely upended once before and he managed to struggle through it, turn it back and stabilize it. He’d managed to convince himself that _stable_ was as good as it was gonna get for him, that _happy_ and _in love_ might be things he’d have to live without.

But really letting himself feel it, he realizes that it’s just Mickey he’s been trying to live without, and this time around it’s like _Ian’s_ the one gripping his life by the edge and taking a chance by flipping it over.

 _Heave-fucking-ho_ , he thinks and puts his back into it.

”Indefinitely,” he says, letting out a shaky breath and smiling up at his old home, ”I hope.”

 

 

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh fudge, I just realised that the "indefinitely" thing is how Notting Hill ends, ugh, I'm really showing my romantic comedy right now.
> 
> I've been working on this for a while and finally felt ready to finish it this week. It kind of started out as a joke but then it sure took a turn for the serious, didn't it? Hope you liked it, anyway, thanks for reading!


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